Across from the church, at the priests’ residence, you see the window of one room is covered by a large “Welcome to the Jungle” banner.
Then there’s the Sunday morning sermon.
It already was preached once before — Saturday night at the team hotel in which the Bengals stay near the University of Cincinnati campus.
To all this, the uninitiated might wonder: “What’s up?”
But those who know Father Scott Wright simply say: “Who Dey!”
Father Wright is an association pastor at Incarnation and, at 29, the youngest priest in the Archdiocese of Cincinnati. He’s also a lifelong Bengals fan … and, this playoff season, he is so much more.
He doesn’t just cheer for the team, he prays with them.
Two years ago he was asked to accommodate the Catholic players and coaches on the team and help say mass at the Bengals hotel the night before Sunday home games.
Rookie running back Giovani Bernard and second-year safety George Iloka are regulars at his service this season, as are assistant head coach Paul Alexander, defensive coordinator Mike Zimmer and his son Adam, the assistant defensive backs coach.
“What’s really nice is that while we’re having our mass in a conference room at the hotel, a protestant chaplain is having a service for a good number of players, enough to fill a double conference room,” Father Wright said. “It’s really cool to see the faith of all these guys as they give thanks before a game.
“And that’s the thing that’s struck me the most. When you’re a fan, you look at these guys as gladiators in helmets and pads. But when they are there in their sweat pants and sweat shirts, you see them on a more human plane. You interact personally and realize they are just normal, average guys.
“They might have the coolest jobs on the face of the earth and have 60,000 people cheering them in the stands, but they deal with the same issues in their lives as the rest of us do and they need Jesus’s grace in that effort as much as everyone else does.”
A couple of days ago, as the Bengals took a midday break from preparing for today’s playoff opener with San Diego at Paul Brown Stadium, Iloka and Bernard talked about that.
“These Saturday night services keep me in touch with God and make me feel close to my parents,” Iloka, the Texas-born starting safety, said of his mom and dad, who come from Nigeria. “I was raised Catholic and did all the stuff — baptism, first communion, confirmation. Growing up I don’t think we ever missed Sunday mass, so all this kind of brings me back to what I know.”
Bernard, whose 1,209 yards from scrimmage (695 rushing, 514 receiving) are second on the team, said Saturday night services have been something of a stabilizer for him in his first NFL season:
“Sometimes your mind doesn’t know what direction to go and going to mass before a game reminds me why I’m here and how I’ve been able to get here. And (Wright) does a great job of keeping our faith in check.”
Father Wright jokes with them that he does a little more than just that:
“I kind of tease them and tell them my claim to fame is that every time I’ve said mass before a game this year — the Jets, Browns, Colts, Vikings and Ravens — they’ve scored almost 40 points,” he said. “Actually, it was more than 40 until last week when a little hiccup at the end left them with 34.”
Not easily discouraged
Father Wright was born during halftime of Super Bowl XVIII, the January 1984 game where the Oakland Raiders overwhelmed Washington, 34-9, in Tampa.
“My mom said I was the best halftime show ever,” he said with a laugh.
Schooled at Saint Peter elementary and then Carroll High School, he was an avid Bengals fan though he didn’t play high school sports. Instead, his extra-curricular pursuits centered around the Boonshoft Museum and the Dayton Theatre Guild; he’s volunteered at both since he was a teenager.
Although he applied at Miami University, he took a visit to the Columbus seminary — the Pontifical College Josephinum — and decided he’d try it for a year, which soon became two.
“Slowly I fell in love with the idea of trying to bring Christ to people every day, whether it was in the high points of their life or the low points,” he said. “Being that conduit I found to be exciting.”
After nine years he graduated from the Athenaeum of Ohio in Cincinnati and was ordained.
It was during his studies in Cincinnati that a friend gave him tickets to attend his first Bengals game in 2006. After that he was hooked and admits trying to enter every ticket give-away contest he could.
He also served in the Air Force Reserve, in the chaplains’ corps, and he put that military training to use as a Bengals fan, too.
Kroger stores were giving away two tickets to each of the first 50 people in line who could show a military ID. He went to one store in Hyde Park, realized there already were more than 50 people there so he rushed to another Kroger in Anderson Township, where — as the 48th person in line — he waited six hours for his two tickets
That kind of dogged pursuit gained him a reputation, and the day he was ordained — before he reported to Incarnation, where he works with youth, visits home-bound and nursing home patients and, of course, says mass — a Cincinnati priest approached him with the Bengals offer.
Getting his starched collar and Bengals stripes all on the same day was like hitting Lotto.
Staying professional
Father Wright’s small office at Incarnation is part spiritual sanctuary and part sports museum.
While one wall has a bookcase filled with liturgical references and there’s a bobble-head of the pope on his desk, the focal point of the room is what he calls his sports niche.
There’s a chair seat from Crosley Field and another from Riverfront Stadium. In between, under glass, is an old orange Bengals helmet autographed by Ken Anderson. A football signed by Mike Nugent — whose family are Incarnation parishioners — rests on one chair.
A Who Dey poster from the Bengals’ 1989 appearance in Super Bowl XXIII hangs on the wall next to a panoramic shot of Paul Brown Stadium and a framed Cincinnati Enquirer page from the September 1985 game when Pete Rose eclipsed Ty Cobb’s hits record with his 4,192nd.
There’s also a photo of Nugent kicking and another of New York Giants tight end Jake Ballard from Springboro catching a pass against New England in the Super Bowl two years ago. He has left an open spot on the wall for something from New York Jets center Nick Mangold, whose family also attends Incarnation.
And then there’s the certificate signifying he owns one share of the Packers, a gift from Green Bay fans in the parish.
While he appreciates the gesture, Father Wright is not swayed. Nor was he especially moved when the Cleveland Browns contacted him when they came into Cincinnati to play and wanted him to say mass.
“I didn’t get back to them in time,” he said with a shrug.
Iloka smiles at such a story: “On the road we’ll have some priests and they don’t try to show their bias — they’ll pray for you but they don’t pray that you do too good.”
And while Father Wright stays professional around the Cincinnati players — “They don’t want somebody going, ‘Oh my God, this is so cool!’ — there is no denying he is an ardent Bengals fan, especially this 11-5 season.
“Seeing the Bengals rise from all the struggles they had through most of my childhood to where they are now is just mind-blowing awesome,” he said. “This can be a springboard for the future and I think in the next couple of years everyone might be talking about the Bengals rather than the Patriots.”
He believes the team could make a run already in these playoffs and that’s when you ask him about one potential problem.
He’s the lighting technician for the Dayton Theatre Guild’s production of the Pulitzer Prize-winning play “The Subject Was Roses,” which opens this weekend.
Saturday’s show begins at 8 p.m. If the favored Bengals defeat San Diego, their game with New England would kick off 15 minutes later on the same night.
“If the show and the Bengals are going concurrently I’ll stream the game through my phone and have an ear piece in back stage,” he said with a grin. “With the Bears game this year there was a conflict and that’s what I did. I just kept the phone in my pocket and nobody knew.
“Well, at one point the Bengals scored, but right then they were laughing on stage, so I was able to let out a little cheer and it just blended in perfect.”
No one said “What’s that?”
With Father Wright, it’s always “Who Dey!”
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